This Will Be a Northside Community Event to Remember

Miggy Camacho has been deejaying for 25 years now, since moving to Denver from Los Angeles to attend the now-defunct Art Institute of Colorado. And in that time, he’s created a local legacy by embedding himself in the community, from promoting and performing at the annual La Raza Park lowrider event to other Westwood happenings like Cinco de Mayo and Dia de los Muertos; he also hosts the SolFax on Colfax event at the Squire Lounge. “It’s all my community, because I live in this community,” he says, noting that his home is near the newly opened Federal Theatre.

And the Federal Theatre is where he’s set his sights for a new, ongoing, all-ages event he’s dubbed Federal Nights, featuring DJs spinning Latin music, food trucks and more. The first iteration debuted in November with the block-party, family ethos that Camacho was hoping for, and it was a big success. “It was crazy because [the owners] were like, ‘You blew it out of the park,'” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘Nope, this is the neighborhood.’ People can just walk there.”

Now he’s gearing up for the first Federal Nights of 2026, which will happen on Saturday, January 17.

After the first Federal Nights, “Everybody was like, ‘We got to do this more often,'” Camacho says. “You know, people hang out outside, get some tacos. Go inside and take pictures at the [photo booth] with their kids and their family. It’s basically a backyard barbecue with your aunts and uncles and everybody, and all the different genres of music that we play all in one event.”

“My whole concept is to get the whole community together,” he says. This next event will include Papas Grandes serving up tacos and Mexican stuffed potatoes; Camacho will be deejaying as DJ Miggy alongside DJ Ricky O (the co-host of KUVO Jazz’s Latin Soul), while the MCs will be Benjamin Chavez, founder of La Raza Park Day and Cruise, and Tim Hernández, another Chicano community organizer. There will also be a digital photo booth from Sol360! and lowrider community members, who will be cruising around the theater. (Alas, there isn’t a permit to park.)

“There are four or five car clubs that come down,” Camacho says. “We show love to them, too, representing the car clubs that cruise down Federal and have been here since day one.”

The music will center on “souldies and oldies,” as well as funk, cumbia and more. “Oldies are like, lowrider music and all that,” he explains. “Souldies is the next generation of that. … It’s a Latin-community thing. They’re bringing back that tradition of soul in music. … Plus, we also play freestyle, cumbia — basically everything you hear at a backyard party.”

In addition to having the be events community-based, it was important to make them all-ages. “The first one, kids were running around having fun,” he says. “There was tias, tios, grandparents. … I was getting grandparents talking to me about when they used to go there when it was a movie theater. The little kids, their dads are telling them, ‘Yo, we used to come here when we were your age.'”

Camacho hopes that Federal Nights will become a bi-monthly happening that enlivens the neighborhood. “My whole thing is to get this growing and growing,” he says, “and then I can start bringing in funk bands and stuff like that. Just make it the whole community again.”

Federal Nights, 7 p.m. Saturday, January 17, Federal Theatre, 3830 Federal Boulevard. Get tickets at the door or on the Federal Theatre website.